Should work eventually, though it will take a while to go through a
larger lock. If you use the thin discs, in particular, use safety
glasses or a face shield and keep your face out of the plane of the
disc.
A 4 or 5 inch angle grinder with a cutoff disc has much more power and
will work faster. The discs are also more robust, and less likely to
break and go flying in several directions (though the face shield is
still an excellent idea).
Dave

Dremel also makes a fiberglas cutoff disc. Somewhat more expensive than
the thin quarter-sized ones in the tube, but they last a LOT longer and
work a LOT better. I've never had one fly into pieces yet, though it
doesn't seem impossible.

Those are also several times as thick as the thin Dremel ones, so it
will take longer to cut through whatever you're cutting (since the power
available from a Dremel tool is rather limited).
This still sounds like a good idea for anything as thick as a padlock
shackle, since it will be difficult keeping the really thin disc
perfectly aligned with the slot for the duration of the cut. The thin
disc breaks really easily if it gets twisted in a slot that it is
cutting.
Dave

It sorta depends. I discovered them after wearing about 12 of the generic
discs down to nubs while hardly making a dent in the object I was trying
to cut. The fiberglas disc did the job in next to no time when you take
into account the time involved in changing discs, and the fact that each
generic disc was making next to no progress at all. The fiberglas disc
wore down to about half its starting diameter in the process of cutting
the object.

Small grinder. Borrow or buy if you don't have one. Don't want to do
that? Use your bolt cutters or a hacksaw and cut the loop the lock
goes through, throw away the padlock, replace the hasp fitting.
Harry K

Ooh! Good thinking!
It's like "The Club" thingy for your car. Thieves don't even bother trying
to defeat it - they just cut the steering wheel (which is made of recycled
metal from an underwire bra and a bit of plastic).

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